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Sunday, January 21, 2007

Sen. Brownback: God's Chosen Candidate?

Sen. Hillary Clinton was not the only candidate to announce a run for the presidency on Saturday.

Senator Sam Brownback, an advocate for the right-wing extremist element of the GOP, threw his hat in the ring as well.

Makes McCain look left-of-center?

The most interesting thing about the Brownback candidacy is that he suddenly makes the other GOP nominees seem like liberals by comparison.

For example, the Washington Post has Gary Bauer's ludicrous take on the subject:

"There are really two primaries taking place simultaneously in the Republican party. One, for center-left candidates, is being fought out between Giuliani and Senator McCain. On the conservative side, nobody has captured that crown yet, but Senator Brownback will be a major competitor."

Only somebody speaking in forked tongues could refer to John McCain as a candidate of the center-left with a straight face.

The 3-antis

Thus far, Sen. Brownback, a Methodist who converted to Catholicism (okay, so not all evangelicals will be thrilled) has defined himself by his opposition to 3 things. He is anti-choice, anti-stem cell research and anti-gay.

In his 17-minute speech to announce his candidacy, the Senator Kansas had the right code-words to reach out to those that reside in the religious right. He re-iterated those points on the Internet.

On his official campaign website, Brownback makes the following policy statements:

We believe in a culture of life—that every human life is a beautiful, sacred, unique child of a loving God.

We believe in justice for all—at all times.

We believe in liberty.

But the central institutions that best transmit these values—the family and the culture—are under withering attack.

Somehow, I do not think that Sen. Brownback sees gay lives as beautiful. He probably doesn't think that justice extends to Guantanamo Bay. I seriously doubt that Sen. Brownback intimately knows of any family that is under 'attack.' And what candidate does NOT believe in liberty?

'The Human Chimera Prohibition Act of 2005' would have outlawed the following:

`(a) In General- It shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly, in or otherwise affecting interstate commerce--

`(1) create or attempt to create a human chimera;

`(2) transfer or attempt to transfer a human embryo into a non-human womb;

`(3) transfer or attempt to transfer a non-human embryo into a human womb; or

`(4) transport or receive for any purpose a human chimera.

This is a man who has seen "the Island of Dr. Moreau" one too many times.

The Brownback paradox

One interesting conundrum regarding Brownback.

The senator is virulently against federally-funded stem-cell research. As recently as last week, he equated it with murder:

"The House of Representatives fell well short of the votes they would need to override a presidential veto of legislation to increase taxpayer funded research that destroys human life."

and this:

"We all want to find cures and treatments for the many diseases and maladies that affect millions of Americans, but there are better options than research that kills nascent human lives."

In that same press release he equated support for stem-cell research with support for human cloning.

How ignorant. The man repeats the lie that these embryos are somehow being harvested for the procedure, as opposed to ackowledging the truth that the embryos that would be used are already available from fertility clinics. They are embryos that will be disposed of anyway, with no benefit to the millions with incurable and debilitating diseases.

And yet, Brownback allegedly made a vow to "end deaths by cancer in 10 years," in his speech on Saturday.

Really, Senator! How exactly do you propose to do that given your passion to thwart science and medical research?

Something tells me that he may be the only candidate, outside of Pat Robertson and Gary Bauer, to suggest the laying on of hands as part of a campaign platform on health care.

2 comments:

This is bad news! By adding this nutcase to the GOP slate, he automatically makes moderate and true conservatives (yes, there are some of the "old school" types out there; and too many are to be found in the Blue Dog Dem Caucus!) like St.McCain even more...

Check out "God's Senator" in RollingStone mag. And especially read about how Brownback used his "faith" and the RaptureRight activism to bully the Senate: (Warning: Ick Alert level is RED!)

Every Tuesday, before his evening meeting with his prayer brothers, Brownback chairs another small cell — one explicitly dedicated to altering public policy. It is called the Values Action Team, and it is composed of representatives from leading organizations on the religious right.

[…]

Even his Chief of Staff is a religious zealot/nutcase:

If senators — even leaders like Bill Frist or Rick Santorum — want to ask for backing from the group, they must talk to Brownback’s chief of staff, Robert Wasinger, who clears attendees with his boss. Wasinger is from Hays, Kansas, but he speaks with a Harvard drawl, and he is still remembered in Cambridge twelve years after graduation for a fight he led to get gay faculty booted. He was particularly concerned about the welfare of gay men; or rather, as he wrote in a campus magazine funded by the Heritage Foundation, that of their innocent sperm, forced to “swim into feces.”

I have hopes that he will drop out of the race early--due to low support, even from the RaptureRight! But, with these people, you never can tell!